The rise of silicon suburbs in regional areas

IF YOU ever thought you could never escape the rat race, you were wrong. The new migration movement is all about fleeing the city — for faster internet in SA’s idyllic regional areas. Here’s where they are

Alley Pascoe

Sunday StyleMay 15, 20168:22pm

View from Angove's cellar door in McLaren Vale in South Australia.Source:News Limited

TWO years ago, Simon Garlick worked in a shared office building in Adelaide’s CBD — packed with people and computers. When it was hot, he just had to sweat it out.

Now he’s in his new McLaren Vale office. “The lifestyle here is almost too good to be true. I have to pinch myself sometimes,” he says.

It gets better. Garlick, 43, has faster internet in his rural office — which overlooks scenic grape vines — than he did in the city. “At my old office, I went offline every time it rained,” he admits. As one of the first towns in Australia to be connected to the national broadband network (NBN), McLaren Vale has become a destination for people wanting to ditch the grind of the city for the serenity of a small town — without losing their internet connection.

It’s been dubbed the e-change movement, where people move from the city to the country, using the internet to make a living. Garlick is not alone in making the move. The recent Super Connected Lifestyle Locations (SCLL) report identified more than 600 “lifestyle towns”, from Kiama in NSW to Ballarat in Victoria. With the rise of silicon suburbs in regional areas outside our capital cities, demographer Bernard Salt says, “We are witnessing a quiet lifestyle revolution in suburban Australia.”

Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data also reflects a surge in the popularity of smaller towns outside capital cities. Fifteen of the top 25 regions that experienced internal migration between 2014 and 2015 are considered “lifestyle regions”. These include the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Geelong. Cameron Kusher of property data analytics company CoreLogic notes that, according to the ABS data, it’s people aged 25 to 64 years old who are most likely to move to regional areas.

“This would seemingly indicate that migration within these coastal and lifestyle markets is being driven by young families,” he says. In other words, far from being traditional seachange retirees, e-changers are seeking both income and lifestyle improvements in areas far from the urban sprawl.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle agrees that the e-change movement is a new phenomenon. With the cost of living and commute times in cities increasing — and affordable housing prospects dwindling — people are moving further away from the CBD. “While that goal of moving out of the big smoke on a tree-change or seachange has always been aspirational, it has suddenly become possible now with the new technology,” he confirms. So why are we swapping urban for suburban?

‘Lifestyle happiness’ is the main reason for making an e-change.Source:Supplied

The SCLL report found that 72 per cent of people who had made an e-change did so in search of “lifestyle happiness”. That was certainly the case for Kimberly and Adam Fisher, who moved their family to Victor Harbor in South Australia from Sydney three years ago, leaving behind their two-bedroom apartment on the northern beaches along with their busy corporate lives. Having both grown up on rural properties, the couple yearned for the country air and freedom of their childhoods.

“When the kids came along, we wanted to give them the same upbringing we’d had,” explains Kimberly, 33. “We wanted space for vegie patches, chooks and sheep. We wanted our kids to be able to ride their bikes down the street and stay out until the streetlights came on.”

In Victor Harbor, which has a population of less than 14,000, Kimberly feels safe raising her kids (aged four and almost two) in a close-knit community. “We know the people who live next door. When we walk down the street we say ‘G’day’ to everybody. We know the names of all the people we bump into,” she says.

Apartment living in Sydney.Source:News Corp Australia

The family didn’t leave their jobs without setting up an alternative — their online business, Eco Child, sells natural and organic products for kids. With the extra time they have to devote to the business, it’s flourishing — they now employ seven people and have opened a retail store in the main street.

Like Eco Child, Kristy Edwards’ online ventures, Clearly Social and Mum’s Virtual Assistant, have flourished since her move to Queensland’s Mt Cotton from Brisbane. “In Chermside, we lived in a 60-year-old house. It wasn’t a great place to work from home,” she explains. “At Mt Cotton, we have a two-storey, five-bedroom house.” Being able to afford a new house with an office for herself and a backyard for her daughters (aged six and three) has been a plus for both Edwards’ work and family life.

Kristy Edwards moved to Mt Cotton.Source:Supplied

Garlick’s business, Chilli Chocolate Marketing, has also benefited from his move out of the city to McLaren Vale. “The speed and reliability of the internet service in McLaren Vale has absolutely changed the way we do business,” he says. “I can move things to the cloud much faster than I could before, and I don’t have the hassle of a back-up server or external hard drive on my desk. Plus, we’re almost entirely paper-free.” Considering most of his work is online and cloud-based, internet speed played a big role in Garlick’s decision to relocate.

The lifestyle benefits are an added bonus. Garlick used to catch a bus and walk a few blocks to his office in the city. Now, he rides his bike through grapevines to get to work. All the time saved on his daily commute is spent with his sons, aged 10 and six, often in the water. “You can see the beach from my kids’ school. Their idea of a class outing is going to the beach,” he marvels.

While it seems to be all chooks, grapevines and beaches, there are still challenges for people who make an e-change. McCrindle says the traditional blockers for moving to a regional area are infrastructure, education and employment. In terms of infrastructure in Victor Harbor, Kimberly needed to organise her own courier to come and pick up her packages and deliver them to the city. “Because we are remote, deliveries to us do take an extra couple of days,” she explains, which can be difficult in the competitive online shopping sphere.

Edwards says networking in a small town has been difficult for her. “I used to have a very tight group of women that I networked with, but in three and a half years I still haven’t found that in Mt Cotton,” she says. And, importantly, she also misses the retail opportunities of the city. “I miss Chermside shopping centre,” she laughs. “I used to be able to walk there for a coffee, and it took me a long time to get used to not having those facilities. I do a lot more online shopping now.”

McCrindle agrees that online shopping and services have made e-changes easier. “The internet doesn’t solve all of the problems, but it does remove a few of those blockers and perceptions people used to have about regional Australia,” he says. New technologies, it seems, are breaking down the traditional barriers that once kept people from moving to small towns.

Kimberly advises those thinking of making an e-change to jump to it. “I certainly would encourage people to move to a smaller community, just because I think it creates a rich life,” she explains. “At the end of the day, it’s about the experiences you can give your family. And I don’t think we would have been able to afford the same experiences if we were living in an expensive city.”

Garlick’s advice is a little different. “Stay away!” he urges. “I don’t want any more people coming here and finding out just how good it is.”